


How Eames and Arthur Saved Christmas

by 3amepiphany



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Christmas, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 01:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8949121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: Philanthropy during the holiday season, because Santa's making his list, and it pays to check twice, no matter the wait.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this six years ago, and it really never went up anywhere but LiveJournal. I think it was for a holiday exchange? I can't quite remember. But. It came to mind today while I was preparing a last-minute White Elephant gift for our work party, and I decided that it should go up here if only for the sake of it being a solidly finished fic.
> 
> If there are any errors or discrepancies, please pay them no mind. I've gone back through it quickly and made a few edits where missing words or redundancy slipped by, and a made a few clarifications of some things, but that's about it.
> 
> Happy holidays.

They were greeted at the door by a trio of huge, chocolate covered smiles.

Dom offered them some peppermint bark as they made their way into the narrow foyer, shrugging out of their coats and hanging them up. Eames gladly took a piece in exchange for his luggage; Arthur declined, picking up James using his free hand and arm, and following Dom down the hallway to the bedrooms. Philippa immediately took hold of Eames’s hand and said she wanted to show him the Christmas tree. From the couch, Miles gave a bright grin and set down his mug, standing and giving the forger a firm handshake (that turned into a hug).

“I was very glad to hear you’d accepted Dom’s invitation,” the professor said. “I am a little sorry to hear that it’s just to be the two of you.”

“Ah, it’s quite alright, we’ll be a merry enough bunch as is. Oh, look at that tree, it’s gorgeous! Did you put that up all by yourself, beautiful?” Eames asked Philippa.

She laughed and shook her head. “No, Grandpa and James and Dad helped! That’s way too much work for me to do!”

“You did pick out the ribbon, though,” Dom said, coming back into the living room.

“I did!” she said happily. Eames took a seat on the little loveseat and she sat next to him. Dom disappeared into the kitchen to clean the chocolate off of his face and get some drinks for the new arrivals, and Arthur came back out down the hallway, wiping down James’ face with a washcloth.

“Check this out, there’s actually a child under all of this chocolate!” He sat down next to Miles, setting James down on the floor and watching him take off after his father. He folded the cloth carefully and passed it to Eames, who held it out to Philippa. She popped the last of her bark in her mouth and took the cloth with a small flourish of her hand. It was so nice to finally be able to see the kids without having to worry about time constraints and customs demands or Cobb’s mother-in-law.

Arthur sat there watching Mal’s beautiful daughter wipe her face down and felt a small pang in his chest. The girl looked right at him, though, smiling, and then at Miles, and at her father.

“Uncle Arthur,” she said after a moment, waiting for his reply before continuing. “Is it true that you and Uncle Eames flew all the way around the world? Grandpa said you did, he did too.” She pronounced it _Eeeeeeems_.

Before Arthur could answer, though, Eames picked it up. He said, very enthusiastically and with a bit of a smirk, “We certainly did, darling. We flew all the way from an absolutely beautiful place called Moscow, in Russia. And when we left, it was nearly Christmas there. In fact, it’s Christmas there now.” He checked his watch and gave a nod.

“Was it cold?”

“Oh, it was dreadfully cold.”

“Does it snow there?”

“Yes! There was snow everywhere! So many giant piles of it that we very nearly had to sled all the way to the airport from our hotel.” Her eyes grew wide at this, and he looked over at Arthur, who gestured for him to continue. “We had the good fortune of running into some reindeer, though, and they were courteous enough to give us a ride--”

Arthur interrupted, clearing his throat, suddenly worried about having let that continue. Philippa only giggled. “Reindeer? Like the ones Santa has?” Miles looked at Arthur, who mouthed an “oh” and settled back against the couch cushions.

“Yes, very much like Santa’s. Didn’t... didn’t one even say his cousin had worked for Santa at one point, Arthur?”

The pointman, cracking a wide smile, nodded. Philippa gasped a little. Dom reappeared in the kitchen doorway holding a bottle of wine in each hand. Miles pointed to the one on the left, and then got up to corral James back out into the living room, complete with sippy cup of milk and a piece of cheese. The little boy went right back over to Arthur and was helped up onto the couch. After a little bit, the adults had their wine, Philippa had her own cup of milk, and the coffee table was covered in plates with more peppermint bark, cheeses and crackers and fruit bits, cookies and graham crackers, and a small tub of little milky white puffs of creme.

“What is that?” Eames asked curiously.

Miles took one and handed it to him. “Divinity. It’s their grandmother’s recipe. Never quite cared much for it myself, far too sweet.”

Dom took a piece for himself and sat in a nearby chair from the dining room table. “So. How was your trip?”

“Long and exhausting,” said Arthur. “We nearly missed our flight into Heathrow.”

“Where’s that?” asked Philippa. Eames stopped mid-bite and told her it was the airport in London. She had a tough time repeating “Heathrow” correctly and so he helped her with it. His accent kept getting in her way, though, and it was rather adorable to hear him try to adopt a very plain sound until it was noticeable enough that she said he sounded like Arthur, who laughed and said with fake indignation that he didn’t sound like that at all. James tried to say the word a few times before giving up and giving Arthur what was left of his cheese. Philippa then asked, “How is it Christmas in Moss- … Moss-”

“Moscow? Well, the way the Earth spins. I believe that right now, people in Moscow are having their breakfast snack and opening presents.” The Brit said “snack” in a way that made the little girl laugh and ask him to say it again. He obliged.

“I think she just enjoys hearing him talk. You notice she does that to me, too? Mind that when she gets older, she’ll be out the door and setting jets before you know it,” said Miles to Dom, who gave too big of a smile and then a bit of a squinted look in Eames’ direction.

“Did the reindeer fly?”

“Yes, they did, most reindeer do, didn’t you know that?” Arthur gave him a reproachful look and he only smiled and continued. “We said we must meet Santa, it’s very important, and they said they’d pass on the word. The reindeer and his friend were off and Arthur and I were on for our flight to London, and to see you. And here we are.”

“But Uncle Arthur said there was a mess-up.” She turned her wide eyes to Arthur and asked just what kind of mess up there was.

“Um,” he stammered. “Ah, it was a big one.” Dom stifled a laugh with the back of his hand, and when Philippa looked over at her father, Arthur snatched her attention back by saying, “It was a very, very big mess-up, Phil. It was something only we could fix, and we weren’t sure if we could.” He gave a glance at his cohort to pass that thought on. 

Eames leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. He filled the silence that Arthur had left well, with all of his subtle dramatics, and Arthur was bracing himself as calmly as he could. He hoped that Cobb wouldn’t be too thrown off.

“We had to help Santa. We had to save Christmas.”

_“You can drop us off here, sir,” Eames called to the taxi driver, first in english and then in stuttered Russian, pulling his wallet out of his coat and rifling through his banknotes for the rubles. Next to him, Arthur gave an odd look, and leaned in close to ask what the matter was. “Just stay with me, dear,” he said with a small smile as the cab pulled up to the curb and the driver got out to get their luggage from the trunk. He got out of the car and the slim pointman followed, pulling the hood of his own coat up over his head and tugging his gloves down snugly. They thanked the driver and watched him pull away, and that was when Arthur turned to Eames and simply stared at him. “Pick up your bags and we’ll walk the rest of the way, love, come on.”_

_“I’m totally not prepared for this, you know that.”_

_“Do you still have your gun on you?”_

_Bent over to pick his bag up, Arthur hesitated for just a moment. “No,” he said, evenly, coming straight back up and adjusting his strap over his shoulder._

_“Neither do I, so let’s get a move on. We’ll easily make our flight if they don’t give us too much trouble.”_

_The walk, Arthur estimated, looked to be about half a mile, but that was half a mile through the snow, and half a mile through the snow with a tail. And there really wasn’t anywhere else to go except straight towards the terminal. He followed Eames closely, wincing as the wet and cold very quickly made its way up into his shoes. “Why here at the parking lot though, why not just straight at the gates?”_

_He could hear the smile in Eames’ voice. “They won’t stop at security, we want to save everyone a scene.” Behind them there was the sound of a car pulling over, and the doors opening and shutting, and soft chatter in Russian. Arthur couldn’t see any sort of reflection on any of the parked cars thanks to the snow, and he found himself instantly more annoyed than he had been moments earlier._

_“You’re going to get us killed.”_

“Woahhh,” Philippa said. “You got to help Santa?”

Arthur sat there with a bit of a shocked look on his face. But Eames carried on. “You see, bunny, your Uncle Arthur and I, well, our circumstances were so incredible. As it was, we had a very important piece of information that we needed to get to Santa. And funnily enough, we wound up needing the old elf, himself, too. The reindeer that got us to the airport were very cordial when we mentioned that and were a help to no end.”

_“Gentlemen,” called one of the voices, and the two of them carried onward, ignoring it. “Gentlemen, good evening, gentlemen. Could you please spare the time?”_

_Eames slowed his gait and turned to answer, the first syllables of a greeting on his lips, when gunfire erupted. Immediately Arthur dove behind the nearest car, rolled, and got back to his feet in the blink of an eye, and headed for the brightly lit terminal. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Eames bolting like a madman in the opposite direction. There were only two men after them, both yelling to one another in Russian, and already he thought he could see people gathering at the curbside of the building._

_There was another gunshot and a car window slightly in front of him burst, and the alarm went off, headlights flashing. He veered off to the left, chest heaving and blood pounding in his ears, and then got the brilliant idea to double back around on the other side of the next row._

_This bought him enough time to shuffle through the most accessible pocket of his bag to produce a paperback novel. In the same moment that his pursuer approached around the far end of a sedan, he threw the book as hard as he possibly could, and hit the man squarely in the face with the spine of it. The man stopped, propelled backwards with both the force and the surprise of the counter-attack, a hand to his face and some words that Arthur vaguely recognized as slang curses and calls for help. Arthur slung his bag off and came over the hood of the vehicle with it, swinging it in a wide arc. The man didn’t see it coming at all and Arthur got him clean on the side of his head, causing the attacker to slump to the ground and drop his gun. There was a moment where Arthur simply stood there and stared before he bent to pick up the weapon and checked the chamber, and then tossed it aside. With a small frown he knelt and completely incapacitated the man with a rough twist of the neck, and then looked up to see where Eames was._

“They took quite a liking to your Uncle Arthur, whom they said was just so full of Christmas cheer that he was certain to get a very good gift from Santa.”

“They knew that?”

It wasn’t Phil asking that. With a rough lilt of amusement, it’d been Dom. Arthur only rolled his eyes and looked over to Miles, who lifted a finger to his lips in a shushing motion. Eames cleared his throat and said, “Yes, they knew it. It was really hard to hide, especially from reindeer.”

_Eames had not tired of the chase, and thought to himself that there really wasn’t any better way to have had dealt with this problem regardless of what Arthur had to say about it. The unscrupulous use of the guns without silencers definitely worked against not drawing attention, but that wouldn’t matter, there wasn’t much further to wait. He cornered around behind a large vehicle and high-tailed it back around the way he came. There were a couple of blasts, both way off of target and hitting cars far off behind him, and he kept low, kept running as fast as he could towards the crowd of people. “Help!” he hollered in Russian, taking a moment to look about him for Arthur. His pursuer fired twice more, sending up little flying tufts of snow just a few footsteps shy of where he was. There was a reply from the crowd and a man that Eames recognized by the uniform to be airport security came dashing out into the street, trying to close the distance to get a good enough shot and yelling for the thug to drop his weapon._

_“Friend, you should really stop,” the man called out behind him._

_“Come on, Arthur,” the forger mumbled to himself, The security officer yelled again, raising his handgun and starting in on a new threat. “Help! This man is robbing me!”_

_Close behind the both of them Arthur was doing his best to keep up, mentally trying to calculate if he could successfully repeat his baggage throw, but with Eames screaming his head off, garnering the attention they wanted to avoid in the first place, and security bearing down on all of them he couldn’t find the time to spend on a second thought. He stopped and straightened his stance, then flung it forward. Hit solidly in the back, the thug went down in the snow face first, and his gun went off again, shattering a window._

_Eames tripped himself up moving to duck and dodge, and he landed in the snow as well with a soft cry, floundering for a moment before getting back to his feet. He watched Arthur close in the last few steps to the man, quickly grabbing his bag up out of the slushy snow and bringing it down on the man’s back. There wasn’t much of a response from it and Arthur stood there like some sort of wild game hunter over a kill until airport security had asserted control. But for all the babbling in Russian that Eames was doing to get them through to their gate and on the flight, Arthur simply sat in the hard little chair at the table, clicking the pen in his hand and staring at the customs form he had diligently filled out while he was waiting for Eames to finish answering the question. He was annoyed that Eames had called such a scene rolling out, though he can’t really imagine what would have happened had the men confronted them inside the actual terminal._

_“It’s a very important find for our study and we cannot waste any more time on this than what’s already been spent. So it’s imperative that we get home to London, gentlemen, please.” His speech was a little easier now that he wasn’t being hunted down in the middle of a snow-covered parking lot. But then he said, in English, “Please. And might I add that Professor Reynolds’ fiance is hoping to have him home for the holiday and she’ll expect me to hand him over so they can go to her parents’ in Birmingham.”_

_Their inquisitor looked at them blankly. “Mr. Heron,” he began in clear, if heavily accented English, “I understand you may be a little shaken at the moment but if you could please focus on using one set language for this conversation, I would appreciate--”_

_“If you don’t mind my saying sir,” said Arthur, “I would much prefer not to press charges, I don’t have the diplomatic pull in my department to finance trips back and forth for depositions. At least, not now. Perhaps once we get back and present our studies to the university board, we may get somewhere... It seems well off enough for me that the one guy got himself slipped up and killed, I almost feel bad for his friend.” He gave an abbreviated smile at this that went shortly to a look of concern. After a moment he checked his watch. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Eames giving him a rather incredulous look, and so he addressed it. “Oh, Charles, stop. The men were firing at us for God’s sake. I am _not_ Indiana Jones and neither are you. Let the guy have what’s left of his dignity so that maybe we can get home in time for Christmas and he can figure out where he went wrong with his life.”_

_They were escorted to their gate and it wasn’t until the plane was taxied onto the tarmac that Arthur turned to Eames._

_“Was that a bit much?”_

_Eames only shrugged._

_“Maybe it was a bit--”_

_“Yes, probably.”_

James had crawled into Arthur’s lap and made himself comfortable, occupying himself by trying to undo the point-man’s cufflinks. His sister finished her milk and her father took the empty cup, getting up to refill glasses. “Uncle Eames, why did you have to help Santa? He wasn’t hurt, was he?”

Eames smiled. “No, of course not and thank goodness. After the reindeer got us to the airport on time, we were on our way to London. It was there that we learned what the matter was, for we received a direct message delivered by Santa’s elves.”

“What did it say?!”

“It said,” and he cleared his throat. “‘My dear Eames and Arthur--”

“It said ‘Arthur and Eames,” interrupted Arthur.

“Did it? Well, no, you’re right, maybe it did.” Philippa giggled. He started again. “‘My dear Arthur and Eames, I was very happy to hear that you were able to make your trip to England and that you made it in good health…”

_“But I regret to inform you that Mr. Wilkins will be postponing his arranged meeting time with you.”_

_Arthur had been standing aside, watching Eames call for a taxi, but when he heard the voice on the other end of the line say this, he very nearly threw his phone into the street. Instead, he steeled himself, set his jaw firmly, and then said into the mobile, “Is there a reason as to why he’ll be late?”_

_“No, sir.”_

_“We have a flight to catch in--”_

_“Mr. Wilkins is aware of this, sir, and he does apologize for the inconvenience. He would like to re-arrange for this afternoon. He insists upon accommodating you and your team until new travel plans can be made, but he only asks that you do not leave without fulfilling his request, this information really must make it to him.”_

_After ending the call he joined Eames inside the cab, slowly shutting the door behind him and making it very obvious, as he always did, that there was a problem. Well, not that Moscow hadn’t been a problem, it was just that they hadn’t really been expecting to have to deal with the mark’s souped-up security outside of the extraction. At least not for a few hours more. “Where is your favorite place to stay in the city, Eames?” he said slowly, popping a few of the buttons on his jacket to settle into the seat more comfortably. Eames gave him a quick glance before rattling off a hotel name to the driver._

_“And so why aren’t we going to the meeting?” came the question as the car pulled away from the curb._

_Arthur only shook his head. This entire job had gone so well up until this point but all he could do now was remain resourceful and receptive towards any more split-second changes. This was his line of work, this was what he was good at, and he had to remind himself of that. With any luck they might still make L.A. for Christmas. His forger looked over at him and asked what their plans should be for the evening. “We wait,” he answered._

_As he looked out the window at the streets and buildings, he couldn’t help but want to punch every single snowflake in the face. And it wasn’t even actually snow; it was that kind of snow that wants to be snow but really quite isn’t by the time it finishes falling. Having spent the last three weeks in constant contact with the stuff he had been so looking forward to time in California. Eames didn’t really seem to mind it. Or, at least, Arthur didn’t see much from him in the way of dislike for the weather, but that was usually how Eames was. He was grateful that the Brit had been considerably good-natured during the work, as it had made it a little more tolerable for himself, but it was ridiculous how not even this fazed the man. Eames simply sat watching everything they passed with a slight smile on his face._

_Of course he knew that if he said anything even the slightest bit off-color, Arthur would be down his throat in an instant. But he knew just as well as his perturbed point-man did that things would work out. Arthur had a pretty good way of _making_ things work out. That was just Arthur._

_“Don’t suppose we could get a little shopping done while we are here so we won’t have to race around once we get to Dom’s?” he asked of his sour-faced teammate. The reaction he got was a superb one that said they most definitely could and needed to do that because Arthur, still being Arthur at work, had forgotten all about gifts in lieu of the job._

“The problem is that I won’t be able to get these children their well-deserved gifts. It seems as if Christmas for them will be a let-down, and I am ultimately sorry. I simply must find what I need before I leave to make my way around the entire world, delivering gifts for all the good boys and girls.”

Philippa listened with rapt attention, but then she gasped at this last bit. “But that would make Christmas late!”

“Indeed it would,” Eames said gravely. “The letter continued on to say that he knew we were the best at what we do, and that is finding things for people, and he asked us if we could please help him find what needed to be found. It took us a little longer than we had thought it would.”

_Arthur entered the hotel room, scowling, die in one mittened hand and the room key in the other. “Wilkins is still not here, what do you want to do?”_

_Eames looked up from the little desk he was sitting at, tube of rubber cement in one hand and Exacto knife in the other. “I told you we should have had him meet us the day of, didn’t I?” The pointman just frowned at him, which was a very odd sight as he was standing there in his peacoat and scarf, his cheeks and nose a bit red. His hair wasn’t slicked back at all, it was rather messy, falling about his forehead and curling a bit. It was wet. He was wet. He likely would have looked very miserable if he didn’t look so angry. “You’re right, I suppose this isn’t the best time for an I-told-you-so. Listen, go back downstairs,” he said, setting down the knife and fishing around for his pack of cigarettes, “have another smoke, keep your eyes peeled, and calm down, he’s got until three to come pick the last of everything up. He’ll be here. He has to be, we’ve got what he’s paying us for.”_

_Arthur came over to the desk and looked down at the work Eames was doing. Having had a second change in schedule, an overnight stay, and now a clock pushing closer to noon, he seemed totally on top of the disadvantages, for the two passports he was working on seemed completely passable right down to bent corners and worn stamps. “I’m not much for getting work done by the skin of my teeth, Mr. Eames.”_

_“I know,” was the warm reply. The forger smiled and surveyed his own handiwork, holding one passport out a bit and looking comically between it and Arthur. “My, but you have such a handsome face, Mr. Guildstein. I’d bet you dimple right up when you smile. If you smile.”_

_“Ha ha, you ass.”_

_Back out on the sidewalk, there wasn’t much of an awning to stand under, and the falling what-ever-it-was still hadn’t solidified enough to be snow. But Arthur flat-out refused to stand inside the lobby for fear of missing first contact and wasting precious time with Raine Wilkins, the gentleman who had procured their services through a mutual friend of Cobb’s. Well, by this point, Arthur would call him anything but a gentleman. In fact, he had some very choice words he’d more likely use, but that would be unprofessional, and as he stood there, watching other pedestrians juggle shopping bags past storefront windows with displays showcasing all manner of holiday specials, he figured the most he could do would be to remain professional or they’d wind up spending the next two weeks back in Moscow. He hoped to high hell that the man hadn’t gone and gotten himself picked off by the person they’d been paid to snoop through for some answers to things that Arthur didn’t really care about. The other few people he and Eames had been working with had already received their shares and high-tailed it to wherever it was they were going._

_What remained of the job, however, was what Eames had offered to have Arthur do for the guy, and that was to collect as much real-world information on the mark as he could. It wasn’t hard to persuade Arthur that the huge majority of that would come from their own work notes and the rest would be to simply go through the man’s belongings and phone contact list as soon as they had him hooked up to the PASIV and put under. They uncovered a nice little cache of data by doing so and Arthur was willing to let it all go (though it was worth so much more, easily) for what extra they had been proffered originally, only at the insistence that Eames never hire him out for “private detective work” like that again._

_And what stood between the two of them and that extra sum and their flight to the States, though, was Wilkins. He wasn’t a shady fellow in the least, he was just very unaccustomed to working with the time schedules of other people. He was very polite and from the digging that Arthur had done, he was a fair philanthropist. The entire time they dealt with him he consistently made the point that he was not out to destroy lives, he was out to destroy agendas. It was even very likely that the political prejudices the man had were what had caused Eames to take the extra bit of the job with a small smile and a quick “I’ll see what we can do.”_

“How did you find what Santa needed? Where was it?”

Arthur fielded this one, and quickly. “It was something we happened to know already, but we didn’t figure that out until we had asked Santa some more questions. That’s why it took so long.”

_Which left Arthur rather perplexed in the beginning, annoyed by the end, and tiredly enraged at the current moment. He stood there, mentally cursing the idea that he should have nabbed a cigarette from Eames when he was up in the room, but then cursing to himself when he thought about how it might not have even stayed lit in this damned weather. He sulked. His pant legs were soaked._

_Twenty minutes later the man finally showed up, shaking his hand as if he weren’t six hours late and hadn’t called, and Arthur pulled the tiny flash drive out and bid him a happy holiday._

_Before they stepped away, though, Wilkins tugged him closer by his jacket sleeve and said, “It’ll be a very happy holiday indeed. Be sure to thank Mr. Cobb for me, it’s been a downright pleasure working with you and I was very happy you decided to help.”_

_Arthur looked at him for a moment and replied that he was grateful for the opportunity, as was Eames._

_“We’ll have to do it again sometime,” Wilkins said._

_The point-man made a bit of a face that turned into a tight-lipped, overly friendly smile. “Mr. Wilkins, we appreciate this offer, but we have to ask that you keep any work you may ask of us in the future strictly to dream-share technologies. Paper trails and all that tend to set us off a bit, and it makes my portion of the job just a little bit harder to do correctly.”_

_The smile he got in return was a genuine one. “Paper trails are what _I_ work best with, I do apologize if this caused you any additional trouble. Thank you, however, it is incredibly appreciated. What I hold in my hand will help to make certain members of the U.S. government a little more sociable towards some ideas, and possibly the same for Parliament. All in all it should produce a very negotiable and very accomplished year for both governments when they return from their holidays, and amount to a lot more ease for both nations’ commonwealths. You’re doing true and good work with this here, sir.” He gestured with the drive, loosely, still beaming. _

_“What, if I may ask, is going to be accomplished?”_

_“More work on public healthcare, taxes, whatnot. Some small reforms that need to be made. A lot of families with children should benefit immensely from this by this time next year. I wish you both happy holidays and safe travels.”_

_“Goodbye, Mr. Wilkins,” Arthur said, shaking his hand once more and seeing him back into his car before looking around for the nearest corner shop that might sell him some smokes._

“And what did you finally find for Santa, Uncle Eames?” She drew out the finally, putting her hands out, palms up, and looking very dramatic about it.

He grinned broadly at her and said, “Oh, bunny, it was--”

But Arthur interrupted. “We had to tell Santa that you and your brother were very good this year. He’d made his list and checked it twice, but couldn’t find out if you and James were naughty or nice.”

She gasped.

Eames gave him a wry smile, and he shrugged and made a motion that told him it was time to wrap up this terrible cover tale. “It’s the truth. And like Arthur had said, we had to ask some more questions to be entirely certain, but it turned out, yes - we already knew what it was that Santa was missing. He was very grateful to learn that young Philippa and James were delightfully nice, but knew he was cutting his time short, and he had to leave right then and there so we offered to bring your gifts ourselves so Christmas wouldn’t be late!” With this, Eames excused himself to go get the items, and he returned with a small armful, putting some under the tree and explaining that some were for the morning but the ones from Santa, well, they could open now if they wished. James’ face lit up and Phil looked at Dom, who shrugged and said he thought it would be alright to open an early present, so long as she actually slept tonight and didn’t come out to poke around at the rest of what was under the tree.

What they unwrapped was a toy bus for James, bright red and with a little Union flag painted on each side, and a gorgeous snow globe for Philippa.

She looked closely at the little cityscape on the inside of the globe, and gave it a good shake, delighting in the fact that when she did, a tiny little sleigh pulled by two reindeer popped up and swirled around in the plastic bits of snow and silver glitter. In it, a little depiction of Santa sitting inside it with an arm raised in a wave, making her gasp again and scramble over to Dom to show it to him.

After the last of the excitement had ended and Miles tucked his granddaughter into her bed, she called for Arthur and Eames. “Thank you,” she told them. “You saved Christmas!”

“I suppose we did,” said Arthur, smiling. He looked at Eames, who shrugged.

Once out in the living room and picking up the leftover food and empty glasses, though, Cobb gave them both a bit of a smirk and asked, “And where is _my_ story?”

Eames laughed and replied, “Well, you see, we had to save Christmas.”


End file.
